


The Paradox of Desire

by Philosopher_King



Series: Whatever is done from love [3]
Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Demisexual Loki, Discussions about topping and bottoming, First Time Blow Jobs, First Time Sex is Awkward, Loki Feels, Loki knows what he wants, M/M, Oral Sex, PWP, Philosophical Loki, Porn With Philosophy, Protective big brother Thor, References to Homophobia, References to Plato, Relationship Discussions, Sibling Incest, at least attempting to be, loki is a nerd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 18:11:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7117072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philosopher_King/pseuds/Philosopher_King
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shortly after they first become lovers, Thor and Loki negotiate some of the details of the relationship.  Thor tries to play the older, wiser, protective big brother; Loki isn't buying it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Paradox of Desire

**Author's Note:**

> So... this extremely self-indulgent fic is basically me trying to work out my own feelings about why (like a lot of people in this fandom, I gather) I tend to prefer Top Thor/Bottom Loki, and that's the arrangement that comes to mind most naturally when I think about Thor/Loki (though I do read and enjoy both configurations!). Only it's Thor and Loki trying to work out their feelings about it.
> 
> This fic is pretty tightly connected to the previous two in my Thorki series ["Whatever is done from love"](http://archiveofourown.org/series/421000), [Desert Flowers](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5729293) and [The Tree of Knowledge](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6209017), so I would recommend reading those first.
> 
> And today's random philosophy lesson is: Loki explains Meno's Paradox (otherwise known as "the paradox of inquiry," though Loki refers to it as "the paradox of the learner" because that's more closely related to the subject matter of the dialogue). I swear to God, that comparison actually just occurred to me when I was thinking about the issue of wanting things you've never experienced; I wasn't just looking for a semi-obscure philosophical reference to put in Loki's mouth (along with the other things that end up there...).

As Loki had predicted, he and Thor could scarcely keep their hands off each other after that first time together.  They were very discreet, of course—they had to be—but a keen-eyed observer who knew what to look for might have noticed some changes in their habits over the following few months.  They started leaving feasts earlier than had been their wont—not always together, or even at the same time, but only often enough not to appear suspicious.  They began taking more hunting trips with only each other for company, rather than with their usual companions, Sif and the Warriors Three.  And after they sparred with each other on the training yards—though not usually after sparring with anyone else—they seldom went to the communal bathing house to wash with their fellow warriors, but tended instead to retreat to their own chambers.

Or rather, more precisely, to Thor’s chambers; by tacit agreement, they only ever had sex there.  Thor was keenly aware that Loki was still very new to everything they were doing, and he wanted to make sure that Loki always had the option to leave if he needed to—and that if they did anything that made him uncomfortable, the unpleasant memories would not cling to his own rooms.  And Loki did still sometimes insist that they shouldn’t be doing this, they had to stop, they were sure to be caught and whipped and exiled, or worse… but he usually stayed anyway, and let Thor hold him and stroke his hair and assure him that they were always careful, they would always be careful, and kiss him until his fears subsided.

Ten days after their first taste of each other, there was a feast to mark the yearly mid-spring festival of love and fertility.  Earlier in the day, the young maidens of the city had gone into the hills to gather flowers to wear in their hair and to adorn the feasting hall, and the air was thick with the scent of wildflowers, as well as of the blossoms of the fruit trees that grew in the palace courtyards.  Loki had definitely had too much to drink, and kept directing significant glances at Thor that Thor acknowledged with a small smile and what he hoped was a cautionary look in his eyes.

Finally Loki seemed to run out of patience and came over to grab Thor by the shoulder as if to lead him away.  “Are you retiring so early?” Thor said pointedly, loudly enough that their friends, seated around them, could hear.  “The night is still young, and the revelry far from over.”

“I’m afraid I’ve quite run out of revelry, and the bed calls,” Loki replied.  He was also trying for ‘pointedly,’ but his words were a bit too slurred to be entirely successful.  He gave Thor’s shoulder one last meaningful squeeze, then walked (remarkably steadily) out of the feasting hall toward the residential wing of the palace.

Thor waited perhaps half an hour, until no one was thinking anymore about Loki’s departure, and so no one would draw a connection; and then he too bade his friends good night and followed Loki (remarkably _un_ steadily, he realized as all the mead he had been drinking suddenly went to his head) toward their quarters.

When he walked through the small entryway and receiving room of his chambers and into his bedroom, he was not entirely surprised to find Loki already there waiting for him, wearing nothing but his bathrobe of emerald-green silk, embroidered in black and gold with the outlines of tree branches and of birds both perching and in flight.  He was sprawled out on Thor’s bed, smirking, with one hand behind his head and one knee bent upward, lifting the skirt of his robe so that most of his inner thigh showed, though the other panel of the robe just barely kept him decent.

“How did you get into my room?” Thor asked, resigned rather than angry.

“I picked your pocket while you were dancing at the feast,” Loki said, and nodded toward Thor’s bedside table, where the stolen key was now lying.

Thor sighed.  “Sometimes I don’t know why I bother locking anything.”

“Well, then don’t,” Loki said, laughing.

“Maybe I won’t,” Thor said, a smile starting to play about his lips.  Loki’s playful air was infectious.  “If this is what awaits me when my door is left open to you.”  Thor pulled off his boots and knelt on the bed beside Loki, sliding his hand up the tantalizingly exposed thigh.

“Happy Thrimilci,” Loki whispered with a mischievous smile, reaching up to pull Thor down for a kiss.

The kiss was languorous at first, but grew increasingly greedy.  Loki was grasping at Thor’s lips with his teeth as he fumbled with the laces at the side of his tunic.  Finally, with some assistance from Thor, he managed to get it off, and then spread his hands firmly over Thor’s bare back and pulled him down even more forcefully, so that Thor’s weight was almost entirely resting on him, and Thor started to worry a bit about crushing the air out of his chest.

But Loki, it seemed, could not get him close enough; his hands were roving down Thor’s back, exerting firm pressure, then scraping down with his nails almost painfully, until they reached Thor’s buttocks and he pressed Thor’s hips down while grinding his own hips upward so that their pricks—both hard now—rubbed against each other through the fabric of Loki’s robe and Thor’s trousers.  Loki worked his hands between them to undo the laces of Thor’s trousers and push them down.  Thor pulled away briefly to untie Loki’s robe, then tugged his trousers the rest of the way off while Loki struggled out of his sleeves (the wine had somewhat diminished his vaunted grace).

At last there was nothing between them but skin, and they fell to kissing again, hungrily, desperately.  Loki was pushing his tongue against Thor’s, taking Thor’s lower lip into his mouth, as if he wanted to drink him down.  Finally he pulled away for air and after gasping in a breath, he panted, “Damn it, Thor… I want…”

He paused again for breath, and Thor asked, amused, “Yes, Loki?  What do you want?”

“I want you to fuck me,” Loki said urgently, almost a plea.

Thor’s amusement faded as he recalled the previous time Loki had said that, when they had first acknowledged their desire for each other.  His voice had been flat, brutal—as if he wanted the fulfillment of his strange, impossible desire to be at the same time his punishment for having it.

Still suspicious of that request, Thor asked, “How do you know?”

Loki blinked up at him.  His thoughts were clearly slowed by drink, but still wandered in their usual meandering paths.  “I have a feeling that you’re not asking me about the reliability of our introspective awareness of our own desires.  Though if you were, I could recommend some very interesting writings by a Midgardian psychologist named Sigmund Freud…”

“No, that’s not what I was asking about,” Thor said patiently.

“I’m not sure I understand the question, then,” said Loki.

“How do you know you want me to take you, rather than the other way around?” Thor clarified.  “You’ve never experienced either; how would you know which you prefer?”

Loki opened his mouth a beat before he began speaking, trying to find words for his thoughts.  “How does a woman who desires men, but has never been with one, know that she wants a man inside her?  It’s just—instinct, I suppose.”

“Perhaps; but you are not a woman.  A man can do both.”

“So can a woman, with the right equipment,” Loki pointed out cheerfully.

Thor frowned at him in confusion.  “What do you mean?”

Loki laughed (or, rather, giggled, which he had been known to do while intoxicated).  “I did quite a bit of reading about the variety of sexual proclivities and practices, back when I thought I would never engage in such practices willingly—I wanted to understand what everyone else found so appealing about it.”

“‘Willingly’?” Thor repeated, sounding wary.

“Oh, I assume our royal parents will want to marry me off to seal an agreement with another realm, or one of Asgard’s nobler families,” Loki explained, feigning carelessness.

“You can always say no,” Thor said, alarmed.  He put a comforting hand against the side of Loki’s face and laced his fingers into Loki’s hair.  “They would never force you to marry against your will.”

“Oh, I didn’t think they would,” Loki assured him.  “I was just planning to go along with it.  The Norns know I’m not good for much else.”

“Loki, that’s not—” Thor began, but Loki cut him off; he did not want Thor to force any more (false, he imagined) praise on him.

“So I expect that I actually know more about the vast array of possibilities for sex than most of the people who crave it far more,” Loki said, returning to the previous topic of conversation.  “Anyway, how would _you_ know which role you would rather take?  Have you experienced both?”

“Well—no,” Thor admitted.  “I have only ever lain with women.  But I do know that it is quite pleasurable for a man to be… filled.”

“Yes, so I have read,” Loki agreed, amused.  “But how do _you_ know that, I wonder?”

“I _do_ read, and that joke was old five centuries ago,” Thor said testily.  “But in this case, I have firsthand knowledge.  Once, when I was at a brothel, my companion suggested putting a… a device she had into me.  She assured me that I would enjoy it.  Quite correctly, it turned out.”  He smiled, distant and a bit dreamy.  “Norns, that woman knew her trade…”

Loki turned his head to nip at the wrist of the hand that was cradling his face, playfully, but hard enough that Thor yelped.  “Are you trying to make me jealous, brother?” Loki said with a mock-threatening flash of teeth.

“Never,” Thor promised, and captured Loki’s mouth with his own so that he could not bite again.

When they parted once more, Loki asked, still somewhat breathless, “What, then?  Are you saying that you want _me_ to take _you?”_

“Not exactly,” said Thor, frowning.  “I’m saying… you are free to take whichever part you would prefer.  You need not feel…”

He hesitated, and Loki, with an expression on his face that was in equal measures skeptical and scornful, filled in for him, “What, I need not feel _obligated_ to let you fuck me?”

“Well… yes.”

“And why do you think I would feel that?” Loki asked, both the skepticism and the scorn unabated.

“Because I am the elder, because I am the heir… I want you to know that regardless of any of that, we are equal here.”  Thor looked directly into Loki’s eyes, hoping his gaze could convey how seriously and sincerely he meant those words.

Loki snorted, clearly disbelieving, but he did not dispute the point.  “Trust me, that is not why I want you to fuck me.”

“Why do you?” Thor asked, as gently as he could, his brow furrowed in a slight frown.

Loki shrugged with one shoulder.  “I already told you… it just feels instinctive.  And besides,” he added with a grin that was mostly mischievous but also slightly sad, “everyone already reproaches me with _ergi_ behind my back; I might as well earn the title, no?”

Thor knew he should no longer be shocked by the depth of Loki’s cynicism, but it still managed to knock the air out of him like a blow to the stomach.  “That is _not_ a good reason to want something like this,” he said vehemently, when he had recovered his breath.

Loki’s disappointed frown could only be called a pout.  “Something like _what,_ exactly?” he said irritably.  “Why are you being so… so prudish about this?”  His tone was rising steadily in both volume and pitch as he grew more agitated.  “No, not prudish… _paternalistic._ Patronizing.  You say we’re equals, and then you don’t trust me to decide for myself what I want?”

Thor started stroking Loki’s hair again, trying to be soothing, but Loki was having none of it, and tried to bat his hand away.  Thor caught the hand that swatted at him and held it, massaging Loki’s palm with his thumb.  “We are equals in status, but not in knowledge and experience.  You have barely begun to enter the realm of sexual experience, and this is not something to be undertaken lightly… for either side, but especially for the one who receives; and that is true for women as well as men.”

Loki rolled his eyes.  “The only reasons I can think of why women, more than men, should not ‘undertake it lightly’ are that they can become pregnant, and that their reputations and marriage prospects suffer far more if they are found out.  The first consideration certainly does not apply here.  And let me remind you, dear _brother,_ that if _we_ were found out, it would hardly matter which of us took which part.  The stigma of _ergi_ pales beside that of incest.”

Thor sighed.  Loki seemed to be returning to sobriety; but even drunk, Loki could still argue circles around him.  “It’s not just that.  It can be painful, or cause injury, if not done correctly…”

Loki laughed through his nose, and it came out half a snort.  “First of all, I already knew that; second—so can most anything!  So just do it correctly.”

Thor shook his head stubbornly.  “I suppose it will just have to be enough that _I_ won’t consent to it if I think you don’t want it for the right reasons.  Or that you aren’t ready.  And there is still much that you have not yet experienced.  For example…”

Thor slid down Loki’s body, stopping only to swirl his tongue briefly around each of his nipples—Loki inhaled sharply at the sensation—before he came to rest with his head at the level of Loki’s hips.  Loki propped himself up on his elbows to watch as Thor took his half-hard cock into his hand and flicked his tongue over the tip.  Loki hissed in a breath, then let it out as a sigh when Thor pulled back the foreskin to lick directly at the exposed head.  Thor began to take it into his mouth, holding the base lightly with his fingers and all the while circling the head with his tongue.  Loki’s eyes widened, and Thor directed a mischievous smile back up at him with his eyes (his mouth being otherwise occupied) and gave a knowing hum.  “Oh!” Loki cried softly, closing his eyes and letting his head fall back.

Thor pulled away to ask, with a crooked grin, “You like that well enough?”

Loki raised his head and said, breathless but still deadpan, “I suppose it will have to do.”

Thor started to dip his head back down to take Loki in his mouth again, and Loki said, “I’ll warn you when I’m close.”

Thor paused, a smile still quirking the corner of his mouth.  “Warn me?  Whatever for?”

Loki blinked, and his brows drew together.  “Surely you don’t want me to spill in your mouth.”

Thor’s smile broadened ever so slightly.  “Don’t I?”

Loki’s surprised expression turned incredulous.  “Wouldn’t it taste terrible?”

Thor shrugged.  “It’s not that bad.”

Loki’s eyebrows shot up.  “How do you know that?  Have you done this before?”

“Only once.  But… haven’t you ever tasted your own, after you’ve brought yourself off?”

Loki looked horrified.  “Why in the Nine would I do that?”

Thor, rather uncharacteristically, was enjoying Loki’s discomfiture; perhaps his brother’s sense of mischief was rubbing off on him.  “You of the insatiable lust for knowledge—you’ve never been curious?”

The edges of Loki’s mouth were curling downward with disgust.  “I’ve never been _that_ curious.  Anyway, as I said, I don’t touch myself very often.  Apparently, not often enough for that curiosity to arise…”

Thor laughed, then took Loki’s cock back in his mouth and began alternately sucking and licking broad circles around the head, sliding his lips down over its length and back again.  He watched with satisfaction as Loki dug his fingers into the bedding, his hands flexed claw-like, and began kneading almost like a cat, and Thor briefly wondered if he would start purring.  _I often thought he and his cat were growing uncannily to resemble one another,_ he mused, and could not stop a laugh from escaping his throat.  Loki, feeling the vibrations it sent through Thor’s mouth, gave a muffled moan; his elbows collapsed and he fell back with a soft thump onto the pillows.  He began to buck into Thor’s mouth, and he whined in his throat when Thor used the hand that wasn’t steadying the base of his cock to hold down his hips.  When he came, his eyes clenched shut and his hands grasping at Thor’s shoulders as if they were the plank keeping him afloat after a shipwreck, Thor let his seed flood over his tongue, savoring its peculiar salty sweetness for a moment before swallowing.

Thor nuzzled his way back up Loki’s body before he collapsed beside him on the pillows, turned toward him, reached out a hand to lazily stroke his hair, and asked, “How are you faring, brother?”

Loki opened his eyes again, still breathing heavily.  “How do you imagine?” he returned, with a slight breathy laugh.

“Well, I hope,” said Thor, and leaned over to kiss him; but Loki dodged away, and splayed a hand playfully over Thor’s face.  “I’m not letting you kiss me!” he said, his tone of horror only half feigned.  “At least not until you rinse out your mouth.  I know what you’ve had in there.”

Thor gave him an exaggerated pout that he thought would really have belonged better on Loki’s face.  _If Loki turns into his cat and I turn into Loki, I wonder who will turn into me…?_ he thought, the evening’s mead suddenly making its presence felt again.  “But I like having the taste of you in my mouth,” he protested.

Loki fixed him with a cool stare from under raised eyebrows.  “If you’d rather have the taste of my spend than the taste of my lips, that’s your lookout.”

“May I kiss you here?” Thor asked, his voice muffled as he buried his face in the crook between Loki’s neck and his shoulder.

“Yes, all right,” Loki said with an arch pretense of reluctance, then hummed with pleasure as Thor traced with reverent kisses the lines of his neck, his shoulder, his collarbone.  _He’s going to start purring at any moment,_ Thor thought.  Finally he let his head come to rest on Loki’s chest just beneath his left shoulder, where he could hear his quickened heartbeat gradually slowing, and Loki reached up a hand to comb idly through his hair.  _Or I might._

They both sighed contentedly at almost the same time, then laughed at themselves.  After a moment of thoughtful silence, Loki asked hesitantly, “You said you’d only done that once before…?”

“Yes, but I have received such treatment from others on many occasions.  I daresay one can learn a few things by example,” he said, reaching up to give Loki’s earlobe an affectionate pinch.

“And they all let you spill in their mouths?” Loki asked, with a note of consternation in his voice.  “And—and swallowed it?”

“Not all, no,” Thor replied, a little puzzled that Loki was still preoccupied by this.  “Some would stop when I was close, and finish with their hands; some would let me finish in their mouths, and then spit out rather than swallow it.”

“Hmm.”  The fingers playing in Thor’s hair grew more restless; Loki began to twine strands of it around his finger rather than simply combing through.  “I’d like to try it,” Loki announced—somewhat hurriedly, as if he had just come to a decision but needed to say something quickly before he changed his mind.  “If you’re all right with not finishing in my mouth.”

Thor craned his neck to see Loki’s face, and found there a sort of anxious determination.  He pulled his hair gently out of Loki’s nervously fiddling hands and sat up to meet his eyes.  “You don’t have to feel obligated to do _anything,”_ he said firmly.  “You don’t need to reciprocate the things I do for you—not if you don’t want to.  Go only as far as you’re ready to go.  I’ll never push you farther.”

Loki frowned at him again—or pouted again, rather.  _It really does suit his face better than mine._ “I may be your younger brother, Thor, but I’m not a child, so stop trying to—to hold my hand.  And I may not have a great deal of sexual experience—no more than you’ve given me in the past week, in fact—but that doesn’t mean I can’t make decisions for myself.  If people were always warned away from trying things because they’d never experienced them before, no one would ever do anything.”

He did have a point.  But before Thor could say so, Loki had already slithered down his body and put his lips to the tip of Thor’s cock.  His long-neglected erection was flagging somewhat, but at the touch of Loki’s mouth his arousal surged back into life.  There was a look of uncertainty on Loki’s face, but he mimicked the sequence of Thor’s actions, licking circles around the head before putting just the tip in his mouth.  Once it was there he seemed not to know what to do with his tongue, and when he tried sucking, ever so hesitantly, his mouth made a strange noise, and he laughed, and then spluttered, and had to pull away.  Thor tried to stifle his own laugh, and Loki looked up at him shamefacedly.

“There’s a first time for everything,” Thor said with gentle good humor.

“Yes, yes there is,” Loki agreed with a look of renewed determination.  He tried again, more successfully.  He still wasn’t entirely sure what to do with his tongue when Thor’s length was in his mouth, but however inexpert his technique, what he was doing still felt wonderful.  Perhaps, though, half the reason for that was that it was Loki doing it—his brilliant, unpredictable, beautiful brother, who had seemed to want no one but in truth wanted no one but _him._

Loki quickly gained confidence and coordination as he went on.  _He’s always been a fast learner,_ Thor reflected, then almost snickered when he imagined what their childhood tutors would say about how quickly he was mastering _this_ skill.  Before long, though, he could think of little beyond Loki’s mouth on his cock, his agile tongue tracing lines of searing pleasure, his eyes glinting a teasing smug _I told you so_ up at his brother.  Thor could feel himself nearing the edge, and he said Loki’s name and gave his shoulder a light shake.  Loki pulled his mouth away and slid back up to tuck himself against Thor’s side, his chin resting on the top of Thor’s shoulder, while he stroked him through his climax (Loki felt confident enough at that, having done it several times already).

Afterward, Loki gave the spend glistening on his fingers a considering look, as if he was contemplating bringing them up to his mouth to taste; but then his mouth twisted barely perceptibly, and he simply vanished the mess, as usual.

“It’s like the ‘paradox of the learner’ that Plato discusses in one of his dialogues,” said Loki, settling his head on Thor’s shoulder.  “The _Meno,”_ he added, as if that meant anything to Thor.  _Not this again,_ Thor thought, somewhat guiltily.  At least he stopped himself from groaning aloud.  It took him a moment to realize that Loki was simply continuing the monologue he had begun before sucking Thor off, as if he had not stopped talking.

“How can you learn the nature of something unless you already know what it is?” Loki went on.  “How can you recognize instances of the thing in order to investigate its nature—virtue, for example, which is the topic of the dialogue—unless you already know enough to know it’s _virtue_ that you’re seeing?  And how can you know when you’ve arrived at the correct account unless you somehow already knew what it was?  But if you already knew, then why did you need to investigate at all?”

“That is a paradox,” said Thor.  He might have had something to say about the issue if not for the still slightly drunken post-orgasmic haze in his mind; but as it was, he was content to leave the talking to Loki, who seemed just as apt for philosophizing when drunk as when sober.

“But clearly such investigations go on all the time; and children learn how to use concepts like _virtue_ without knowing in advance what they mean.  So it must be enough to have a vague understanding, to be able to identify and compare possible examples, and modify one’s application of the concept as needed.  A similar paradox arises—‘the paradox of desire,’ you might say—if you insist that one can’t truly want something without already knowing what it’s like.  If that’s the case, how can someone ever want to try something new?  And yet people do, all the time.  If they didn’t, no one would ever do anything—because, as you so aptly put it, there’s a first time for everything.”

“People would never do anything their parents didn’t force them to do as children, anyway,” Thor put in.  “As I recall, that was how we both tried a great many new vegetables we didn’t want to try.”

Loki snorted.  “Yes, well, the point still stands for things like having sex for the first time, or trying chocolate—”

“Or cannabis?” Thor suggested impishly.

“Or cannabis,” Loki agreed with a slight roll of his eyes.  “People _do_ try these things, voluntarily, so they must want to, and know that they want to—”

“Or know that they _don’t_ want to,” Thor said significantly.

Loki ignored him, but for a small exasperated sigh.  “—so again, it must be enough to have a vague idea of what the experience will be like, what urge it will satisfy, in order to want it for the first time.”

They both fell quiet for a few moments; Thor reached around Loki with the arm that he was partly resting on to gently comb through his hair the way Loki had been doing earlier with Thor’s, and Loki’s eyes fell happily closed.  At last, reluctantly (Thor almost resented the way talking to Loki for an extended period of time could make him start to wax philosophical as well; it seemed, like his mischievous bent, to be contagious), Thor said, “But—mightn’t there be difference between wanting to _try_ something—or wanting the _idea_ of it—and wanting the thing itself?”

Loki opened his eyes to shoot a resentful look at Thor.  “Well, if there is a difference, there’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?”

Thor shrugged with the shoulder that Loki wasn’t lying on.  “Perhaps someone who knows the person well, and has experience with the activity in question, would know when there’s a difference.”

Loki sat up on his elbow and glared down at Thor.  “I don’t know how you’re justifying to yourself this protective older brother act, Thor, because you’ve done more to corrupt me in the past few days than—well, than anyone, in my entire life.”

Thor gently tugged Loki’s elbow out from under him and pulled him back down to rest his chin above Thor’s shoulder.  “I think a fairer assessment would be that I’m abetting you in corrupting yourself, while also trying to slow the pace at which you would do it.”

“Hmph,” said Loki, but (for once) he didn’t argue.  He stretched one long, pale arm across Thor’s chest and closed his eyes as if to go to sleep.

Thor allowed himself to doze off, but awoke again when he felt the tickle of Loki’s breath against his neck, and heard just the faintest whisper: “I want you inside me because you already are—always.  I want to feel you to be a part of my body, as I already feel you to be in every other way—as much as I might wish to deny it.”

Thor knew that Loki must think he was asleep, or he would not be saying this aloud.  He kept his breathing slow, so as not to break the illusion, while also quieting it so that he could hear Loki’s whispered words, themselves barely louder than breaths.

“Because you _are_ part of me, and something feels—missing, when you’re gone.  You’re part of my very identity: I don’t know who I would be if I weren’t your brother.  If you looked for the concept of me in the book of the world, it would be written: ‘Loki, brother of Thor.’  You’re contained in my essence; next to that, is it not a small thing to have you contained in my body?”

Thor found himself oddly grateful for the minutes that he spent feeling simply stunned; they were a few more minutes that he did not have to spend holding back tears while waiting for Loki to fall asleep.  He could just imagine how furious Loki would be to discover that Thor had been feigning sleep while listening to the words that were meant to be spoken only to the dark.

When at last he heard the telltale slowing and deepening of Loki’s breathing, he allowed himself to weep, as close to silently as he could.  He hardly knew how to think about this revelation; he only hoped he could find a way to tell Loki, or show him, that he felt—not the same way, exactly, but something just as deep and true.  Or almost.  What he did know was that, while he would not bring it up himself, if Loki made his request a third time, Thor would not refuse.

**Author's Note:**

> ...yeah, Loki's attitude has changed somewhat by the beginning of _The Avengers._ (For details on that process, consult my multi-chapter Loki-in-the-Void WIP, [The Abyss Gazes Also](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5236796/chapters/12078722).)
> 
> Thrimilci is the Norse May Day; I had "Beltane" as a placeholder for a while, but that wouldn't do because it's a Celtic word. Not going to deal with all the Walpurgis stuff that comes before... it's not really relevant for my purposes here.
> 
> Also, first reference to Loki's cat Fenrir since [Not This Day](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6015226)! Go me and my gimmicky unified fanfictional timeline.


End file.
